


man of constant sorrow

by viktuuriousred (zuwujun)



Series: Frontier AU [4]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Frontier, Epilogue, Gen, Part of Series, read prior fics first
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:15:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25714927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zuwujun/pseuds/viktuuriousred
Summary: A look into the life of —, as told by the people who knew him.
Relationships: Katsuki Yuuri & Original Character(s), Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov
Series: Frontier AU [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1738471
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	man of constant sorrow

**Author's Note:**

> Guys, this is — we're talking about.. expect graphic language, content, all of it. If this isn't your cup of tea, dw. You aren't missing anything from the main story by skipping over this.

— was the illegitimate son of a Chinese immigrant and a high society woman who claimed she was raped by the immigrant to save her fragile marriage. In retaliation, the immigrant was hung in the high society woman’s front lawn by her husband, and left there for several days for passerbys to gawk at. It was to set an example, he said, for anyone else who thought to make a fool of his darling wife. I am sorry to say that I could not uncover the name of —'s biological father, for even a grave does not exist for the man. It was said that he was tossed off a cargo ship into the Chesapeake Bay, but no one can ever be sure of those things.

Out of the kindness of his heart, the high society woman's husband, Theodore Charles Pierce II, adopted the boy and raised him as his own, giving him his name. From then forward he was known as Theodore Charles Pierce III. To avoid confusion, family and friends called him Charles, or Charlie. I often wonder what his true father would have named him, or what his surname would have been, but I digress. Charlie was a strange lad from the start, his mother told me. He loved his adopted father fiercely, but held no more room in his heart to love or respect anyone else. He would often try to attack his mother or older brothers and sisters. At aged seven, he chased his poor older sister, Cynthia, with a carving knife and cut the girl’s cheek so deeply that there is still a scar. Mr. Pierce’s patience only stretched so far. After dangling his baby sister from the third story window, Mr. Pierce lost whatever love he had left in his heart for the boy and began to abuse him. “Terribly, terribly,” Jennie Pierce said, dabbing her kerchief round her eyes. “I felt so powerless, yet so guilty. The boy should never have been born. I always thought so.”

Jennie admitted to me that she had attempted to terminate her pregnancy multiple times, but none were successful. Only her journal knew of her secret fantasies of escaping her life on the sea, to run away with her son's father and fake her own death to do so.

Mr. Pierce sent his adopted son to live with his wicked uncle, James Pierce, in Dover, Delaware at aged twelve. This was more than thirty miles from his home town of Chesterton, and as such his other relatives would hardly ever visit. The uncle was a fisherman based at nearby Port Mahon and spent most of his days out on the open sea, leaving the boy to entertain himself, as he was expelled from school after just two days and would not be permitted back in. Apparently, he was tormenting a few young children and locked them in a closet for an entire day, telling them if they made a noise he’d stab them.

Jennie Pierce said that Charlie often hid himself away once his uncle returned home, but she wouldn’t elaborate. He caused a great bit of trouble in Dover, and Jennie believed his anger escalated once his drunken uncle revealed the truth about his heritage: that his adopted father hung his real father— and because he began to notice how differently he was treated because of his mixed heritage. So he “capitalized off that fact”. He terrorized the neighborhood, stole pets and toys and destroyed both. He once set fire to a young girl’s dress. The police never did a thing about it. 

Jennie Pierce next saw her son at the funeral of her husband, when Charlie was just fourteen. The boy showed no sorrow at the death of his father. He laughed after his father was set into the ground and said, “Now you and my bastard father can burn in hell together.”  
After that, Jennie moved in with the uncle, James Pierce (who passed away a few years later), and her younger daughter, while the rest of her unmarried older children went to live with other relatives for their own safety. According to Jennie, Charlie’s uncle was far more abusive than his father had ever been, and it turned her poor son into a bitter, hateful youth. She said the next few years were nothing short of hell for her boy. They all counted down the days until Charlie was of age, when they would urge him to move west to work on railroads and terrorize others instead of his poor family. In the mean time, he continued his torment. Jennie would bar the door of the bedroom she shared with her poor daughter and seldom sleep until Charlie left in the morning to smoke or drink.

That all changed shortly after Charlie turned eighteen, at an Easter Sunday service in Dover in the year 1851. That was the day he met Yuuri Katsuki, “the only person he hated more than his father, yet loved more fiercely than he had anyone else”. 

“I almost went to the Katsuki’s to warn them.” Jennie said with a roll of her eyes, nervously twirling her fingers in front of her.  
“About what?” I asked.  
“About Charlie. To keep their son away from mine, for his own safety. But I didn’t.”

Charlie harbored an obsession for Yuuri Katsuki. She always knew it would end badly, because she knew her son and what he was capable of. But for the first year, their romance was the pinnacle of innocence and for a moment, Jennie thought that perhaps her son truly had changed for the better.

“It all changed when Yuuri turned seventeen. I think that’s when they got serious.”

Yuuri started visiting the Pierce residence every Sunday afternoon. He made it clear to Jennie and the rest of the family that he was expecting a proposal any time now, and that he would obviously accept. “I think he felt as if he did not have a choice in the matter.” Jennie said, “Being that him and my son had already been intimate. To Yuuri, that was the right thing to do.”

But as time wore on, the proposal never came, and Yuuri grew tired of waiting around. The truth is, Charlie was growing bored of Yuuri and did not wish to be with him, but couldn’t stand the idea of him being with anyone else. Once Yuuri began properly courting a perfectly suitable gentleman, Jennie’s true son came back out of hiding. He urged Yuuri to stay with him, and when Yuuri refused him, the abuse began. Though truly, it had always been there. From the very beginning, when pinches were just a little too hard or he’d tug Yuuri’s hair… it had evolved to something much worse.

She knew her son had taken things too far when Mrs. Katsuki herself came marching up the front path early one spring morning in 1853. “Hiroko, what a pleasant—”  
“Mrs. Pierce!” Her voice was shrill. “You _must_ get your son under control! This cannot continue to go on!” The Katsuki’s decided to forbid Yuuri from seeing Charlie, but it still happened. Charlie followed Yuuri, every time he set foot out of his home.

It was a good thing when he went away to college in 1853, which is why Jennie was puzzled to see Yuuri standing at her front gate a year later...

She was watering the plants in her garden, and so she didn’t greet him right away. He didn’t come in as he usually would, instead waiting at the front gate. 

“Hi Yuuri,” she squinted at him under her wide, wicker hat. His expression was grim. “I thought you were away at Delaware College?”

“Mm… is Charlie here?”

“He should be in the backyard… is something the matter?” _Why on earth should you want to see him?_ She wondered, but it was none of her business. 

“No, Mrs. Pierce. I just wanted to see him while I’m here.” 

“He’s in the back garden, sweetheart. Will you be staying for lunch?”

“Ah… not today. Thank you, Mrs. Pierce.”

And so, Jennie Pierce continued about with her gardening, only stopping when she heard her son scream, “You’re _what_?!” 

“Oh dear…” She set down her watering pail and crept towards the back gate to listen. 

“You’re acting as if this is _my_ fault, Charlie! You’re the one that did this!”

“Oh yeah? How do you know it’s mine and not Teddy’s? Or that other guy? You’re just trying to ruin my goddamn life, as always.”

“As always? Damn it, Charlie, I _told_ you I was fertile and _you_ said it was fine, that you’d pull out! But you didn’t! How is this my fault? You _always_ get what you want, and this is the consequence of that!”

“Fucking whore…” Charlie mumbled. There was a lengthy pause between them before Charlie continued, “So, what, are you going to hurry up and get rid of it? Who else knows?”

“I’m keeping it.” Yuuri’s voice was confident, unwavering. “With, or without your help. No one else knows but you.”

“Then keep it that way. I don’t want it.”

“Fine.” 

“Fine!”

.

Her son was clearly pissed for the rest of the day, and snapped at her several times during supper. Eventually, she had enough. “Theodore Charles Pierce, what _is_ the matter? Who made you so angry?”

“Yuuri Katsuki.”  
“And why are you angry at Yuuri Katsuki?”  
“Because he’s a fuckin’ bitch whore who’s trying to ruin my whole goddamn life.” He stabbed into his steak, leaving little to the imagination on who he wished the steak was. 

“And how is he trying to ruin your life, exactly, Charlie? Please, talk to me about this before you do something rash.”

“Well, _Mother_ , Yuuri Katsuki claims I’m going to be a father in the spring, which is bullshit, by the way, it’s definitely not mine. Do you have any idea what that would do to my reputation? I can’t _believe_ he’d do this to me!”

“Well… sweetheart, _if_ you are the father, wouldn’t that mean _you_ did it to _him_?”

Charlie shoved his plate across the table so hard that it cracked Jennie Pierce’s. “Are you seriously going to take _his side_?!”

“I-I didn’t—”  
“Yuuri Katsuki is a goddamn _whore_ !! This is _all his fault_ , and don’t you _dare_ try telling me it’s mine, or I’ll beat your ass too!”

***

She remembered her son coming home in the middle of the night in November, shouting at no one in particular. It woke her from a sound sleep, all the ruckus he was making. But she had grown afraid of her son and didn’t dare to find him, to see what he was so angry about. 

But in the morning, she truly feared for her life. She found bloody clothes, Yuuri Katsuki’s belongings, and her son, asleep on the couch, literally with blood on his hands. And on his chest was a _braid_ of black hair. _Yuuri’s_ hair. She assumed that Yuuri Katsuki was dead at this point, and left that day to stay with her sister, leaving Charlie to fend for himself.

She didn’t hear from him for a few more years after that, which she was glad for. 

***

“Charles was a strange man, somethin’ off about ‘im,” the town sheriff told me one lazy afternoon in Independence. “Caught ‘im trespassin’ at an old Italian family’s home once. He never made much sense. I’d been in battles, but I fear just about nothin’ other than that guy. He just ain’t right, there’s no other way to describe it.”

***

“Charles Pierce ruined my daughter’s life.” A bitter old woman tells me at her comfortable cabin in Oregon. She spins a story of her daughter, Annabelle Mary Thompson, meeting and falling in love with Charles Pierce while her family still lived on the eastern shore. She admits that her daughter was already pregnant by the time they set out for Oregon, but the quick wedding in St. Joseph, Missouri, hid any rumors. “He seemed like a nice young man at first, but there always appeared to be something off about him. Still, I tried my best to like him, for my daughter’s sake. Until one morning in western Nebraska, my daughter, my sweet little Annie, comes and sits by me at the river to wash her clothes, and there is a bruise covering half of her face! Her eye is swollen, her lip is busted, her nose might be broken! Still, she begged me not to do anything, that she loved that damn man. I couldn’t stop her father from confronting Charles, though. I wish to this day that he hadn’t. The next morning, our daughter and Charles were gone. He had taken her in the night.

“Some months later, she wrote to us, telling us her location and announcing the birth of her daughter Sadie. We, of course, promised to visit, but by the time we found her home, it was abandoned. We found her and the baby’s remains in the bedroom, long since decayed. I _know_ he killed them both, and whoever killed _him_ was a hero.”

**Author's Note:**

> hmm I wonder if we'll get Yuuri's "interview" in the next chapter hmm hmm hmmmmmm ;)
> 
> NEXT TIME: 1857 to his death in 1860. we get snippets of letters, bit more graphic content, lots of fun... not. see you then! 
> 
> For some reason I've decided to finally post the "epilogues" of some of the characters all this time later. I know there won't be many readers, if at all. But I have never been able to truly move past this story, or this fandom, so I'm gonna do it.
> 
> Next epilogue will be, "House of Gold" (so bookmark the series to get notified!) which is about Yuri P.
> 
> Now, about Charlie's name.
> 
> For months as I had secretly worked on this story before posting it, I couldn't come up with a name I really liked for our main villain. For awhile, I referred to him as "Chalmers" because it was odd and uncommon (and also a reference to some anonymous character from a kids' cartoon, but THAT'S another story). Eventually I just decided to stick with the "Ch" but choose a much more common name. Charles was too polite, Charlie sounded about right. Still, I thought it would be more interesting if I just kept his name as a dash for the entirety of the fic, as if someone was censoring it out. But now you know.


End file.
